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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23638186">Coming Out (Smelling of Roses)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regionalpancake/pseuds/Regionalpancake'>Regionalpancake</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Picard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Coming Out, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Raffi opening up to Seven about her time at the Academy, Since let's hope thats not really a thing in the 24th century, Starfleet Academy, Well was Raffi really in the closet?, tw: light drug reference</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:09:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>776</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23638186</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regionalpancake/pseuds/Regionalpancake</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Raffi shares stories with Seven about her time at Starfleet Academy and considers her identity.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Raffi Musiker/Seven of Nine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Coming Out (Smelling of Roses)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <em> The outstanding writer asianscaper wrote a dedication recently that really made me think, and as imitation is the highest form of flattery... </em>
</p><p> </p><p>This little fic is dedicated to everyone who saw their own queer identity in Seven’s ‘otherness’, it took over 20 years, but we were right &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">You brush your hair out of your eyes. Play with your Horgl. Wish there was actually some goddamn snakeleaf in there instead of that ridiculous replicated non-narcotic Emil cooked up.</p><p class="p1">No. You’re grateful, really. That holo’s working overtime trying to haul Jurati out of the void as well as yourself.</p><p class="p1">You take a drag anyway. The taste is the same, indistinguishable from the real thing, molecularly crafted. Musky and lingering but the relaxation fails to follow.</p><p class="p1">The relaxation fails to follow and <em>fucking hell </em>you could use it right now.</p><p class="p1">Seven sat with you on the floor.</p><p class="p1">Close.</p><p class="p1">Close in conversation steeped in boundaries and baggage but physical closeness too. The electricity running along where your legs touch, knees grazing as Seven adjusts herself against the bulkhead, betrays a feeling in you hadn’t quite named in yourself, not yet.</p><p class="p1">Weren’t quite ready to.</p><p class="p1">Seven asks about your time with Starfleet. Was it like hers? Was it better?</p><p class="p1">You laugh and crank up the circus organ of academy stories. Old pain, tragic scars dressed as anecdotes that are distant enough to be funny, but tender enough to mean something.</p><p class="p1">You tell the one about the gardener. It’s a good story with all the trimmings of a fine tale; embarrassment, miscommunication, underwear that wasn’t your own stuffed in your pocket, and some pretty sound advice from a man who seemed too wise to be tending the roses at the academy.Or wise enough to know that it was both more rewarding and less trouble than wearing pips. </p><p class="p1"><em>It doesn’t matter, not really.</em> He’d said. Pulling his cap down against the August sun and picking aphids off the blooms.<em> It all comes out in the end.</em></p><p class="p1">Blushing, you’d played the pronoun game long enough to walk around this story like a garden.</p><p class="p1">Words like ‘friend’ and ‘partner’ trim the borders of your sentences. 'They' were funny. 'They' were beautiful. 'They' weren’t worth it. 'They’re' too flighty. Too quick to anger. Too similar. Too much like yourself for you to love them properly.</p><p class="p1">But somehow you don’t think that’s going to work on Seven. That unflinching observation, head cocked, eyebrow raised.</p><p class="p1"><em>She</em>, you acquiesce, <em>never got the underwear back</em>. You chuckle and it feels light and freeing to be candid. You never saw her again, you say, she dropped out of the academy later that year, Torres-something, your memory straining.</p><p class="p1">Turns out Seven knows her. They were in the Delta Quadrant together.</p><p class="p1">She’s married now. Has a kid.</p><p class="p1">Small universe.</p><p class="p1">You think of Gabe and it’s suddenly hard to think of anything else.</p><p class="p1"><em>Sorry</em>, you cough, you don’t remember putting the horgl to your lips. <em>Sorry</em>.</p><p class="p1">You hadn’t meant to drive this conversation, with a screeching u-turn, into your wreckage of a past. <em>Just how it goes</em>, you think. All too often. <em>It’s why you live alone. It’s why you’ve stayed alone.</em></p><p class="p1">Breath shallow.Head hung between your knees you watch La Sirena’s metal floor coral your tears in zigzag lines. Surface tension breaking they drip down to the lower deck. Disappearing. At edge of your vision Seven moves to close the distance.</p><p class="p1">You don’t look up, but the grate of the floor is in shadow now as a heavy arm wraps around your shoulders. Seven’s thigh pressed close against your own.</p><p class="p1"><em>Don’t worry,</em> she says, her voice calm and authoritative, though you could swear it holds a little potential warmth at the edges.</p><p class="p1">Like ignition paper.</p><p class="p1"><em>I’ve been there too</em>, she says and your not sure if she means about her son, or about Torres or about being so sorry and exhausted and a waste of a person or if it’s just all of it and...</p><p class="p1">And It doesn’t matter anyway, because before you can finish your thought you feel a hand take your own. Your eyes dart up meeting Seven’s attentive gaze, her expression hesitant, quietly questioning consent.</p><p class="p1">Your gaze softens and Seven presses her lips to the back of your knuckles, her eyes fluttering closed and the only way you can tell that time hasn’t stopped is the gently pulsing lights of the ship around you.</p><p class="p1">You idly wonder if this is the next near-miss story you’ll tell?</p><p class="p1">They were beautiful. They were dangerous. They were too much like you for you to love them properly...</p><p class="p1">But maybe not. Seven turns your hand, warm lips meeting your wrist.</p><p class="p1">She’s beautiful. She’s dangerous. And maybe she’s enough like you for you to figure out what that means for once.</p><p class="p1">You breathe a sigh that starts on your lips and ends on hers.</p>
<hr/><p class="p1"><em>It all comes out in the end.</em> Back on Earth Boothby cut roses in the sun.</p><p class="p1"> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So I made a few assumptions about Raffi's age since there's no canon birthdate at the moment (please correct me if there is one).</p><p>I’m assuming Raffi is 53 during the events of Star Trek: Picard (since Michelle Hurd is 53 ((how?!))) which would have her born in 2346. That fits nicely with the only birthday info Memory Alpha has which has her born “mid 24th century”.</p><p>This is all very well and good until you realise that that puts Raffi in her 3rd or 4th year at the Academy while Harry Kim and B'Elanna Torres, both born in 2349, were fresh faced first years! They grow up so fast :p</p><p>This is my first attempt writing character POV, let me know what you think :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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